Ciudad Juarez: European envoys told not enough being done to solve women's murders

Community activists, business leaders and officials in Ciudad Juarez told ambassadors from eight European countries on Friday that not enough was being done about the killings of young women in this rough border city.

The ambassadors of Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Belgium and Austria met with law enforcement officials, and then with representatives of advocacy groups focused on the city's decade-long string of women's murders.

Over 100 young women have been killed most strangled and dumped in the desert since 1993 in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. A total of more than 350 women during that period in this city of about 1.3 million.

Activists and victims' relatives have accused police of mishandling investigations of the crimes, and extracting forced confessions, while not doing enough to solve the killings.

"We are very interested in social issues and law enforcement issues, and a problem that has been very much in the public eye in recent years in Europe, which is the problem of the killings of women," Austrian Ambassador Werner Druml told local media.

The ambassadors were invited by the Chihuahua state government, which hopes to improve the industrial city's violent image, reported AP.
P.T.